The fact that women only account for 17 percent of the U.S. Senate and 17 percent of the House troubles President Obama, who suggested Friday that Congress would be more productive if it boasted more women to help offset all the jerking off that male senators and representatives have earned so much renown for recently.

According to CBS, female candidates may very well be poised to grab some more seats in Congress this fall, which is welcome news for Republican Martha Zoller, who'd be especially happy to see her party put more women on the ballot since, over the last 20 years, Republicans have nominated only half as many women for Congress as have Democrats.

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In the history of the Congress, only 2 percent of its members have been women, a fact that could help female candidates in a political climate that's increasingly hostile towards incumbents. There are plenty of explanations for such a persistent gender disparity in American politics, none of them very satisfactory — the U.S., trumpeted as the bastion for freedom, ingenuity, and Yankee-Doodle industriousness, ranks 71st in the world for the number of women in politics, behind Vietnam and Kazakhstan. Why?

"Family responsibilities," Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women's Policy Institute at American University, told CBS, "a lack of political recruitment and the notion that they don't think they're qualified to run for office have traditionally hindered women's candidate emergence." Lawless tacked the enigmatic phrase "self image" onto that little litany of obstacles littered along a woman's path to political power. She may as well have added "dicks," lots of reactionary, patriarchal dicks, a whole dick jungle, in fact, that's proving pretty difficult to, um, prune.